Facets of Jaina Religiousness in Comparative Light

Author(s): L M Joshi
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 71

FACETS OF JAINA RELIGIOUSNESS
revealed scriptures (paramārşa-pravacanärtha-nirupaṇe nipuṇāḥ).”
An acarya is sometimes called a ganadhara if he is the head of a community of mendicant monks (yati-samudaya). Right knowledge, right faith, and right conduct constitute the essence of the Jaina path (samayasära); he who is himself established and who establishes his community of followers in these three (foundations) is called a ganadhara. The word gona means sangha, community or order. By upholding the acārya the entire order is upheld, and by upholding the order, the means of attaining spiritual welfare and release is ensured. We have already noted above that one of the meanings of tirtha is the order or sahgha. By honouring the acarya one honours. the tirtha, and this tirtha is the means of attaining welfare as well as the supreme goal.102 Hence obeisance is offered to an ācārya. The word guru is also used for ācārya. The tirthankara-arhat is called the guru of the three worlds. The äcāryas, upadhyāyas, and sadhus are certainly venerated as guru because they have become great by virtue of their excellence in the three jewels (triratna) of Jainism.
III. vi. THE UPADHYAYAS
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The word upadhyaya generally means an instructor or teacher of religious texts. As an instructor of a part of the Veda for wages only, an upadhyaya was considered in the Vedic tradition as inferior to an ācārya. As the fourth member of the Jaina holy pentad, an upadhyaya is, as a rule, an ordained monk of the Jaina order who is expert in teaching scriptural doctrines. One text states that "the upadhyayas are those (spiritual) heroes (sura) who are possessed of the three jewels (ratnatraya), who are expounders of the realities enunciated by the Jina, and who are endowed with an attitude of desirelessness."103 Another text states that "an upadhyaya is one under whom the scriptures are studied for the sake of ultimate Release" (mokşärtham sastram upetya tasmadadhiyata iti upadhyayah). According to Acarya Akalañka "he is called an upadhyaya who is established in the observance of vows and practice of meditation and from whom good people study the revealed scriptures" (vineyenopetya yasmad vratafilabhāvanādhiṣṭhānādāgamam brutäkkyamadhiyate sa upadhyāyaḥ).10 Tradition is unanimous in saying that the upadhyayas are virtuous and learned sages. They are expounders of fourteen sciences (vidyas), or expounders of their contemporary tenets, and they possess most of the qualities of acaryas,100
99.
100.
101.
Haribhadrasuri on Prasamaratiprakaraṇa, verse 2.
Bhagavati Ārādhanā, verse 289.
Ibid., verse 325.
See Aparajitasuri's Ţika on Bhagavati Aradhana, verses 325-326.
102.
103.
Niyamasara, verse 74.
104.
Sarvarthasiddhi on Tattvärthasutra IX. 24, p. 338.
105.
Tattvärthavarttika on Tattvärthasutra IX. 24, p. 623.
106. Dhavalaṭīkā, I. 1.1 p. 51. See also Munitoşanitika on Avasyakasūtram, pp. 58-59.